Hi all, On Wed, 2014-11-12 at 13:23 -0800, Tim Hoffman wrote:
Agreed, and it would be disappointing if the WIX was abandoned by New Zealand ISPs for sure. It’s important to have that there, not least of which because we’ve seen NZ get segmented between Wellington and Auckland on at least one provider due to multiple cable cuts in the last decade.
+1. I'm all for a second IXP in Auckland, but while peering at both might save you from faults with APE, it helps not when the volcanic field gets its game on. And, as Tim says, the country does get partitioned from time to time. I'm all for WIX retaining significance. As an extension of the cable-cut issue, it happens in the deep south alarmingly often, with very wide reaching consequences due to the lesser diversity that exists down that way, and the tendency for operators to get by with less. It would arguably be better that the dominant non-AKL exchange were south of Cook Straight, but this seems unlikely to come about.
Both from a latency point of view (3000km round trips, from eg, down the South Island to Auckland, is even worse than Wellington), and also from an equality-of-opportunity point of view: if all traffic is exchanged in Auckland, any ISP (and potentially customer) based outside of Auckland is at a disadvantage in needing to buy more expensive backhaul to their base. This is an interesting point. I wonder if there are any regional ISPs on list (particularly in the South Island) who could comment on how materially this actually affects their business models?
Speaking as one until recently operating a Christchurch-centric network which peered in AKL, WLG and CHC, I found that (business) customers expected you to keep local traffic local. Some "on general principles", but there were enough willing to pay accordingly. It is certainly true that it costs more to deliver internet access in the South Island. Backhaul is getting cheaper, but it ain't free, and volumes are of course going the other way. All the content is up north, where the rest of the world lives. ;) Peering locally used to make a larger dent in the backhaul bill, but as has been noted, CDNs are on the rise and there are virtually none outside Auckland. At this point, peering locally is more about optimisations for high value customers, and resiliency. I'd speculate that a consumer-oriented network would see very little value in anything outside of Auckland. That said, two IXPs in Auckland makes very good sense. Digested: Two in Auckland, one somewhere else please! Cheers, Erin